Free The Best American Sports Writing 2013 by Glenn Stout

the ball blazed down the lane, zipping back in time to smash the pins apart in a powerful, driving strike. And there was even more cheering as all 10 pins fell. Thirty-five strikes down, one to go.
    Before his final roll, Fong wiped his ball with his towel. He heard a woman’s voice behind him, a stranger, saying, “We are having fun, aren’t we?” He lifted the ball to his chest and stood calmly for a moment. Then he took five steps and released the ball toward perfection.
    It looked good from his hand, arcing out the way so many of his great strikes that night had, cutting back to the pocket just in time. Several people started applauding before the ball even reached the end of the lane—that’s how good it looked. But this time, as the pins scrambled, something unimaginable happened. The 10 pin, farthest to the right, wobbled. But it didn’t fall.
    Some of the people in the room couldn’t process what they’d just witnessed. How could the last roll, like the 35 before it, not be a strike? Strangers fell to their knees. It was hard for anyone to breathe.
    Fong turned and walked to his right. He was empty. Blank.
    His friends, the ones who were prepared seconds ago to tackle him in celebration, grabbed him and held him still. As he stood there, Fong wanted to say something—anything—but he couldn’t make a sound.
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    Sitting around the table two years after that night, Bill Fong and his teammates still argue. Fong truly believes that the last pin could have made his life perfect. “It would have made all the difference,” he says. With a 900, he theorizes, he might have made
SportsCenter
, and he would surely have sponsors. He thinks he might have had a chance to join the pro tour. At least, he figures, he’d be the best of all time at something, with the name Bill Fong immortalized above even the legends of the game—and he wouldn’t be just a regular guy.
    â€œThat pin makes me like the Rodney Dangerfield of bowling,” he says. “I get no respect.”
    He goes over that last roll in his mind all the time. He watches the shaky cell-phone video.
    â€œIt looked so good as it left my hand,” he says.
    When that 15-pound sphere collides with the pins, so many things happen so fast that there’s no way of knowing exactly what went wrong in those milliseconds.
    That hasn’t stopped Fong from searching for some reason. He wonders if he could have practiced more. He blames the 10 years he was away from bowling. Like that single pin represents the Bowling Fates punishing him for his insolence.
    His teammates disagree. They don’t think that pin would have made much of a difference in Bill Fong’s life at all. What he did was amazing, something that will come up in conversation around the Plano Super Bowl for years.
    â€œIt was mind-boggling,” Gibson says.
    The fact that he missed perfection by the last pin on the last roll—that makes the whole thing more human, less robotic. And that, somehow, makes it seem almost beautiful. Besides, they argue, Fong still holds the Texas state record. And because there have been only 21 perfect 900s, he is technically tied for the 22nd greatest night in the annals of bowling history. (There have been only 11 899s.)
    His life is also better now. Around the time of the 899, Fong got a part-time job at the pro shop at the Super Bowl. Recently, he opened his own place down the road, Bowling Medic Pro Shop. A lot of people from his four leagues come by to have him drill their balls. Sometimes he cuts their hair too.
    There’s also this: that night, after the 899, his friends bought him a few beers. He doesn’t usually drink, but at the time, he felt like the best day of his life had just turned into the worst. After a beer or two—and at least an hour of excited congratulations from strangers—he felt dizzy. When he got home, he went into the bathroom and vomited in the